Essays

Name: Bill Fusaro
DOB: 1965
Location: Deep River, CT
Label: Atheist
My Story
It was December 25, 1973. I was eight years old and had just finished opening “all” my Christmas presents. Then my mom said something like, “Wait … Santa left you guys a note.” Me and my brothers rushed over to the table. There was a hand written note which said, “You each have one more present in the basement. – Santa Claus.”Of course I was excited about the fact that there was still another present … as it turned out there were three brand new...

Name: Rob Coulter
Born: 1965
Location: Grand Prairie, Alberta, Canada
Former Religious Affiliation: Never baptized
Label: Independent Atheist
Gradual Awareness
Things that aren’t rational really bug me. I believe about half of what I see, and even less of what I hear. I prefer to find things out for myself, and if something doesn’t make sense, I’ll tear it apart to see why it doesn’t work.
My parents never had me baptized; my older brother was baptized, but my parents decided to leave it up to me, or maybe they had doubts, or maybe they didn’t see the point in it. Whatever...

Name: Robin Henry
Birth Year: 1947
Location: Alice Springs, NT Australia
Label: Secular Humanist/atheist
Former Religious Affiliation: Nominal Presbyterian, but only attended church compulsorily while at boarding school (three years)
Quite late in life I began identifying as an atheist. For some decades I had considered that I was probably an agnostic as I thought there could be a supreme being, but I considered that as we had never see or heard from it, him or her, it was unlikely that he, she or it existed (he for simplicity).
Although I had attended Sunday School on a few occasions...

Name: Andrew Herzman
Year Born: 1964
Location: Long Island, NY
Label: Atheist
Former Religious Affiliation: Catholic
Where Do I Begin?
I was brought up Catholic, but never read the Bible. I just went to Church and did the rituals like communion and confirmation, but I never really saw the point of it.
As a child, I overheard my mother tell somebody that a priest admitted to her that religion was all made up nonsense. My mother actually taught me that organized religion is just “smoke, candles, stained glass and other things to impress you”. She made it clear to me that it was important...

Name: Tim Finnegan
Born: 1998
Location: Pleasant Hill, California
Label: Atheist, Secularist, Skeptic
Former Religious Affiliation: Catholicism
Your Story:
I was born and raised in the general Martinez-Pleasant Hill area of California, near the San Francisco Bay. My father had been raised to be a devote Catholic. He went to Catholic school all the way until his graduation day. Naturally, when me and my siblings were born, he and my grandparents (my mother wasn’t too big on religion) began to fit me with what Seth Andrews calls “God Glasses”, which is simply another way...

Name: Bailey Lang
Born: 1992
Location: Orlando Florida
Lable: Truth-ist (if there is such a thing)
Former religion: Protestant-Christian
My Story:
My name is Bailey Lang and I have lived in Florida all of my life. I’m going to college online to become a medical coder and biller. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I’m single. I live with both of my biological parents and my younger sister. I was raised going to church with my mother every week. I worked for the church operating the soundboard from the age of 14 to the age of 16, I have always been accepting and caring of...